There’s this one opponent to common core that made a presentation based entirely on quotes from people who originally contributed to and supported common core: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF16la1IiGI”. Originally it seemed like a good idea, but the cirricula kept getting watered down so badly that students wouldn’t leave high school with enough education to get into college. There are those who like to suggest that common core is now only about indoctrinating students with {liberal | conservative} ideas. I don’t know enough about that. But if you can’t do basic algebra when you leave high school, you’re in trouble.

This “no child left behind” idea has only resulted in the general cirriculim being dumbed down. You can’t fail anyone, so you have to teach something so lame that any idiot can do it, and then even the smart kids don’t learn anything.

I think there are some bird species with super efficient ATP generation due to superior mitochondria. I’d love to be able to replace all of mine with theirs.

Actually, it’s also time to not forget that many of the microorganisms living in our body are yeast as well, not just bacteria.

I currently work as a CS professor, but I still do some tele-consulting for a company I used to work for full time. Because I do tops 8 hours/week, I now consult under someone who used to be my subordinate while I was there. That may sound awkward, but it isn’t. My supervisor has a CS degree but his engineering skills aren’t rockstar, so he gravitated to organization and leadership roles, and that was precisely the best thing for him. I find him very easy to work with because he is technical enough that I can communicate with him, he listens to what I say, and because he manages me at exactly whatever level I need for any given task. If I’m having trouble keeping track of what I need to do (because it’s easy to lose track when I work for him once a week and have a whole other day job to do), he’s right on top of it. If I have a really clear idea of what I need to do, he gives me space and is available to answer questions, discuss strategy, etc. I’m used to being the babysitter, keeping junior engineers and grad students from getting off track. This guy does that for me, but he does it in a way that isn’t awkward at all; in fact, he makes me feel respected for the work I do. (Incidentally, he also directs an engineer that used to be an owner of said company before it was sold, and they have a very good working relationship as well.)

My point is that the technical skill of the manager is only somewhat important. Even more important is people skill and the ability to keep track of all the high and low-level details necessary to keep employees on track. You don’t have to know all the implementation details in order to maintain a clear vision of what everyone is trying to accomplish and help them get the resources to do it. In the most successful companies, “managers” spend little time “directing.” Instead, they primarily work to serve the needs of their subordinates, insulating them from company politics and ensuring that the engineers have all the tools and support they need to work effectively without distraction.

How do you share C code with a friend? Drag the text file in standard ASCII format or copy some text into your email program and send it.

How do you share visual programming modules with a friend? Screenshots? Some open or proprietary XML representation that isn’t human readable? Is there a way you can convert it to and from SVG?

Diagrams are great, but there isn’t a universal standard for representing them, making it very hard to share and replicate. Even with something structural, like chip design, we prefer text-based representations (e.g. Verilog) over visual representations (e.g. schematic capture). Indeed, schematic capture is generally considered to be a cumbersome and inefficient approach to circuit design unless you’re in the final stages of floorplanning. Complex algorithms and circuits are best represented in a more abstract, textual form.

Excellent point. Salaries cut into profits, and businesses are often too short-sighted to hire really good talent for good wages. On the other hand, every hire is a huge risk, so it’s statistically safer to hire less skilled workers at lower pay.

Sorry. I should have put quotes around that. I personally don’t believe they’re morons. But the businesses sure do. I’ve been on the receiving end of that assumption, despite the PhD, and it’s infuriating.

They charge too much and their hardware is always out of date.

I decided to buy some seriously high-end computing equipment for research, and I compared HP, Dell, and Red Barn. For the same price, Red Barn gave me newer hardware, more hardware, faster turn-around on quotes, better service, faster build times, and faster customer service. http://rbtginc.redbarncomputers.com

I keep hearing two contradictory theories:

(1) There aren’t enough STEM graduates for the jobs available. Crisis for the tech industry!
(2) There are too few job openings for the massive numbers of STEM graduates. Crisis for unemployment!

Are these things really contradictory? Or are both true? For both of them to be true, then what we really have is an education crisis, where we’re putting too many losers on the job market. Businesses get lots of applicants, but most of them are fundamentally unhirable, because they’re morons. So although the number of applicants may well exceed the number of openings, only a small fraction are worth hiring.

There seems to be plenty of hiring for low-pay code monkey and short-term contract jobs, and those seem to dominate the tech industry. So any engineering student who can think his or her way out of a paper bag complains they can’t find work because the jobs that are available are utter shit. So perhaps on that basis, we can rewrite the two hypotheses above:

(1) There aren’t enough REALLY GOOD STEM graduates. In fact, businesses are forced to assume (on the weight of massive statistics) that ALL of them are idiots.
(2) There aren’t enough good-paying tech jobs, because most of the jobs are parceled out to code monkeys by businesses structured around that kind of employee.

I don’t know why this is so hard for people to understand. Facebook’s primary source of revenue is ads. Just like Google. They increases the probability that you’ll click on one by examining every last bit of your data that goes through their system. That’s the whole thing in a nutshell.

It amazes me that people are surprised by this.

Don’t put anything on the internet that you don’t want Facebook, Google, the NSA, and every one else looking at. If you store something encrypted on the internet, there’s a chance someone will hack it and get your data anyway. NOTHING IS PRIVATE ON THE INTERNET. Yes, I have a Facebook account, which I use rarely to connect with friends and family. I don’t talk about anything sensitive, and I don’t publish any information that isn’t the sort of thing I would be embarrassed to appear on my LinkedIn profile, which is something I WANT people to see.

The key here isn’t to to complain about Facebook’s policies. That isn’t going to change because 99% of people just accept them anyway. The key is to avoid those services if you object to them. There are many other things in life that make you become publically visible, not limited by any means fo Facebook. Perhaps you want to avoid those too. Good. If ultimately the majority of people decide they don’t like being probed like this, perhaps Facebook will chance. But probably not because they’ll still have a billion users.

Some really stupid picture of you getting drunk from 5 years ago is still on the Internet somewhere, and employers WILL find it. I think this is awesome. In this economic environment, I’m very glad to have more ways that people remove themselves from competition with me when I’m looking for a job. Some people just don’t do really stupid things, while others are forward-looking enough to keep them from getting published. Either way, those are the sorts of people I want to hire in preference to jackasses who think it’s funny to show everyone how stupid they are.

The Republicans do something I agree with? Woah. I’m going to have to switch to being pro-surveilance! I’m in a conundrum!

Isn’t it the republicans who are usually in favor of this sort of stuff? They’re usually the morallity police who think it’s okay to spy into your house to make sure you’re not doing something gay or smoking pot.

Oh, wait. I get it. The republicans, who support big businesses rich people taking over the world, are afraid that surveilance will uncover their dirty dealings.

I am by no means a global warming denier. It seems straightforward that human use of carbon-based fuels has massively increased CO2 in the atmosphere, a known greenhouse gas. This isn’t rocket science. Additionally, there are numerous other impacts we have on the environment, polluting natural resources, where we need to clean up our act.

But the sappy, apocalyptic dogma is getting really old.

My family and I went to Disney recently, and we spent one day at EPCOT. Tomorrowland isn’t what it was when I was a kid. Back then, it was cool stuff about how great technology will be in the future. Now, they appear to have run out forward-looking ideas, and the whole experience is up-your-nose enviromentalist brainwashing. We went there to have fun and instead got lectured. And this lecturing is happening everywhere, and it’s annoying. OK, I GET IT. I recycle, I professionally do research in areas involving improving energy efficiency, and I donate money to organizations that work on envronmental protection and political activism.

This reminds me of this “common core” education program, which its original creators won’t sign off on, because it’s all become a load of crap. Instead of teaching kids math, science, language, and critical thinking, it’s all about instilling certain specific attitudes. And both the liberals and conservatives are trying to get their bullshit in there. Enviromental awareness is never about the environment. It’s about two warrning political parties trying to brainwash people into two different dogmas that further their agendas, most of which is to keep big businesses and the politicians themselves in power.

The price fell because of a surplus that probably wasn’t being fully consumed. I wonder what kind of energy storage solutions they have. Batteries have substantial energy loss between charge and discharge, and supercapacitors aren’t cheap or super enough.

I have a PhD in engineering too. Computer Engineering. So I’m probably just as unqualified as the AC to comment on this. :)

BTW, you should look at the comments on the article. They’re more interesting than the article. Apparently this idea of ringless pistons has been known since the 1950’s.

When it comes to aeronautics, liability is a major concern, so the idea of putting in something really new like this is probably a bit conerning to some people, so this is a good way to introduce it: Start by making noncritical components like plastic shields that are mostly cosmetic as a way to test out the technology safely, and gradually expand to new things as the approach is proven.